Discussion and Outlook

In contrast to “continuous systems” and their canonical description with partial differential equations, there is no standard model for describing interactions of discrete objects, particularly of interacting discrete biological cells. In this book, cellular automata are proposed as models for spatially extended systems of interacting cells. Cellular automata are neither a replacement for (or discretization discretization of) traditional (continuous) mathematical models nor preliminary mathematical models but constitute a proper class of discrete mathematical models – discrete in space, time, and state space, for which analytical tools already exist or can be developed in the future.